Extreme Denial Read Free

Square. Once famous for its flower sellers, the area was now occupied by street merchants, with their jewelry, ceramics, and paintings spread out before them. Ignoring the distractions, Decker kept after McKittrick, turning right past Bernini’s Boat Fountain, shifting through the crowd, passing the house where Keats had died in 1821, and finally saw his quarry enter a cafe.
    Yet another mistake in tradecraft, Decker thought. It was foolish to seek refuge in a place with so many people outside; someone watching would be difficult to notice. Choosing a spot that was partially sheltered, Decker prepared himself for a wait, but again McKittrick came out sooner than expected. He had a woman with him. She was Italian, in her early twenties, tall and slim, sensuous, with an oval face framed by short dark hair and sunglasses tilted on top of her head. She wore cowboy boots, tight jeans, and a red T-shirt that emphasized her breasts. Even from thirty yards away, Decker could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra. McKittrick had his arm around her shoulders. She, in turn, had an arm around his hips, her thumb hooked into a back pocket of his slacks. They proceeded down Via dei Condotti, took a shadowy side street on the right, paused on the steps of a building, kissed hungrily, then entered the building.
    4
    The phone call came through at 9:00 P.M. Decker had told McKittrick that the number didn’t connect with Decker’s hotel. The number did connect, however, with a pay phone in a hotel down the street, in the lobby of which Decker could wait, reading a newspaper, without attracting attention.
    Every half hour, starting at eight, he had strolled to the phone, waited five minutes, then returned to his comfortable chair. At nine, when the phone rang, he had been in place to pick it up. “Hello?”
    “Baldwin?” McKittrick’s vague New England accent was recognizable.
    “Edward?”
    “It’s on for tonight at eleven.”
    “Where?”
    McKittrick told him.
    The location made Decker frown. “See you.” Uneasy, he hung up the phone and left the hotel. Despite what he had told McKittrick, he did have jet lag and would have preferred not to work that night, especially since he had been busy for the remainder of the afternoon, going to the international real estate consulting agency for which he ostensibly worked, reporting in, establishing his cover. His contact at the agency had been keeping a package, about the size of a hardback novel, that had arrived for Decker. After returning to his hotel room, Decker had opened the package and made sure that the pistol he removed, a Walther .380 semiautomatic pistol, was functional. He could have chosen a more powerful weapon, but he preferred the Walther’s compactness. Only slightly larger than the size of his hand, it came with a holster that clipped inside the waist of his jeans, at his spine. The weapon didn’t make a bulge against his unbuttoned blazer. All the same, it didn’t reassure him.
    5
    There were five of them—the tall, attractive woman whom Decker had seen with McKittrick, and four men, all Italian, from early to late twenties, thin, with slicked-back hair. Their appearance suggested that they thought of themselves as a club—cowboy boots, jeans, Wild West belt buckles, denim jackets. They even smoked the same brand of cigarettes— Marlboros. But a stronger factor linked them. The facial resemblance was obvious. They were four brothers and a sister.
    The group sat in a private room above a café near the Piazza Colonna, one of Rome’s busiest shopping areas, and the site for the meeting troubled Decker. Not only was it in far too public an area but with short notice, McKittrick shouldn’t have been able to reserve a room in what was obviously a popular nightspot. The numerous empty wine and beer bottles on the table made clear that the group had been in the room for quite some time before Decker arrived.
    While McKittrick watched from a corner of the room, Decker